"The fact is, sir," he blurted out, "there is an uncommonly strong case
against Mr. John Menzies Grant."

"Phew!" whistled the superintendent.

"I think you'll agree with me, sir, when you hear what I've gathered
about him one way and another."

Robinson was sure of his audience now. Quite unconsciously, he had
applied the chief canon of realism in art. He had conveyed his effect by
one striking note. The rest of the picture was quite subsidiary to the
bold splurge of color evoked by actually naming the man he suspected of
murdering Adelaide Melhuish.




CHAPTER III

THE GATHERING CLOUDS


Thus, it befell that Grant was not worried by officialdom until long
after his housekeeper and her daughter had recovered from the shock of
learning that they were, in a sense, connected at first hand with a
ghastly and sensational crime.

Like Bates and their employer, neither Mrs. Bates nor Minnie had heard or
seen anything overnight which suggested that a woman was being foully